Читать книгу The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny - Робин Хобб - Страница 24

BELOW THE WATER. Not just for a breath, not engulfed in the moment of a wave, but hanging upside-down below the water, hair flowing with the movement of it, lungs pumping only saltwater. I am drowned and dead, he thought to himself. Drowned and dead as I was before. Before him was only the greenly-lit world of fishes and water. He opened his arms to it, let them dangle below his head and move with the waves. He waited to be dead.

But it was all a cheat, as it was always a cheat. All he wanted was to stop, to cease being, but it was never allowed him. Even here, beneath the water, his decks stilled of battering feet and shouted commands, his holds replete with seawater and silence, there was no peace. Boredom, yes, but no peace. The silver shoals of fish avoided him. They came toward him like phalanxes of sea-birds, only to veer away, still in formation, as they sensed the unholy wizardwood of his bones. He moved alone in a world of muted sounds and hazed colours, unbreathing, unsleeping.

Then the serpents came.

They were drawn to him, it seemed, both repulsed and fascinated by him. They taunted him, peering at him, their toothy maws opening and closing so close to his face and arms. He tried to push them away, but they mobbed him, letting his fists batter at them as frantically as he might, and never showing any sign that they felt his strength as anything greater than a fish’s helpless flopping. They spoke about him to one another, submerged trumpeting he almost understood. That was the most frightening thing, that he almost understood them. They looked deep into his eyes, they wrapped his hull in their sinuous embraces, holding him tight in a way that was both threatening and reminiscent of… something. It lurked around the last corner of his memory, some vestige of familiarity too frightening to summon to the forefront of his mind. They held him and dragged him down, deeper and deeper, so that the cargo still trapped inside him tore at him in its buoyant drive to be free. And all the while they accused and demanded furiously, as if their anger could force him to understand them.

‘Paragon?’

He startled awake, from a dream with vision into the eternal hell of darkness. He tried to open his eyes. Even after all the years, he still tried to open his eyes and see who addressed him. Self-consciously, he lowered his up-reaching arms, crossed them protectively over his scarred chest to conceal the shame there. He almost knew her voice. ‘Yes?’ he asked guardedly.

‘It’s me. Althea.’

‘Your father will be very angry if he finds you here. He will roar at you.’

‘That was a very long time ago, Paragon. I was just a girl then. I’ve come to see you a number of times since then. Don’t you remember?’

‘I suppose I do. You do not come often. And your father roaring at us when he found you here with me is what I remember best about you. He called me a “damnable piece of wreckage” and “the worst sort of luck one could have”.’

She sounded almost ashamed as she replied, ‘Yes. I remember that too, very clearly.’

‘Probably not as clearly as I. But then, you probably have a greater variety of memories to choose from.’ He added petulantly, ‘One does not gather many unique memories, hauled out on a beach.’

‘I am sure you had a great many adventures in your day,’ Althea offered.

‘Probably. It would be nice if I could remember any of them.’

He heard her come closer. From the shifting in the angle of her voice, he judged she had sat down on a rock on the beach. ‘You used to speak to me of things you remembered. When I was a little girl and came here, you told me all sorts of stories.’

‘Most of them were lies, I expect. I don’t remember. Or maybe I did then, but no longer do. I think I am getting vaguer. Brashen thinks it might be because my log is missing. He says I do not seem to recall as much of my past as I used to.’

‘Brashen?’ A sharp edge of surprise in her voice.

‘Another friend,’ Paragon replied carelessly. It pleased him to shock her with the news he had another friend. Sometimes it irritated him that they expected him to be so pleased to see them, as if they were the only people he knew. Though they were, they should not have been so confident of it, as if it were impossible a wreck such as he might have made other friends.

‘Oh.’ After a moment, Althea added, ‘I know him as well. He served on my father’s ship.’

‘Ah, yes. The… Vivacia. How is she? Has she quickened yet?’

‘Yes. Yes, she has. Just two days ago.’

‘Really? Then it surprises me you are here. I thought you would rather be with your own ship.’ He had had all the news from Brashen already, but it gave him an odd pleasure to force Althea to speak of it.

‘I suppose I would be, if I could,’ the girl admitted unwillingly. ‘I miss her so much. I need her so badly just now.’

Her honesty caught Paragon off-guard. He had accustomed himself to think of people as givers of pain. They could move about so freely and end their lives at any time they chose; it was hard for him to understand that she could feel such a depth of pain as her voice suggested. For a moment, somewhere in the labyrinths of his memory a homesick boy sobbed into his bunk. Paragon snatched his consciousness back from it. ‘Tell me about it,’ he suggested to Althea. He did not truly want to hear her woes, but at least it was a way to keep his own at bay.

It surprised him when she complied. She spoke long, of everything, from Kyle Haven’s betrayal of her family’s trust to her own incomplete grief for her father. As she spoke, he felt the last warmth of the afternoon ebb away and the coolness of night come on. At some time she left her rock to come and lean her back against the silvered planking of his hull. He suspected she did it for the warmth of the day that lingered in his bones, but with the nearness of her body came a greater sharing of her words and feelings. It was almost as if they were kin. Did she know that she reached toward him for understanding as if he were her own liveship? Probably not, he told himself harshly. It was probably just that he reminded her of Vivacia and so she extended her feelings into him. That was all. It was not especially intended for him.

Nothing was especially intended for him.

He forced himself to remember that, and so he could be calm when, after she had been silent for some time, she said, ‘I have no place to stay tonight. Could I sleep aboard?’

‘It’s probably a smelly mess in there,’ he cautioned her. ‘Oh, my hull is sound enough, still. But one can do little about storm waters, and blown sand and beach lice can find a way into anything.’

‘Please, Paragon. I won’t mind. I’m sure I can find a dry corner to curl up in.’

‘Very well, then,’ he conceded, and then hid his smile in his beard as he added, ‘if you don’t mind sharing space with Brashen. He comes back here every night, you know.’

‘He does?’ Startled dismay was in her voice.

‘He comes and stays almost every time he makes port here. It’s always the same. The first night it’s because it’s late and he’s drunk and he doesn’t want to pay a full night’s lodging for a few hours’ sleep and he feels safe here. And he always goes on about how he’s going to save his wages and only spend a bit of it this time, so that some day he’ll have enough saved up to make something of himself.’ Paragon paused, savouring Althea’s shocked silence. ‘He never does, of course. Every night he comes stumbling back, his pockets a bit lighter, until it’s all gone. And when he has no more to spend on drink, then he goes back and signs on whatever ship will have him until he ships out again.’

‘Paragon,’ Althea corrected him gently. ‘Brashen has worked the Vivacia for years now. I think he always used to sleep aboard her when he was in port here.’

‘Well, but, yes, I suppose so, but I meant before that. Before that, and now.’ Without meaning to, he spoke his next thought aloud. ‘Time runs together and gets tangled up, when one is blind and alone.’

‘I suppose it would.’ She leaned her head back against him and sighed deeply. ‘Well. I think I shall go in and find a place to curl up, before the light is gone completely.’

‘Before the light is gone,’ Paragon repeated slowly. ‘So. Not completely dark yet.’

‘No. You know how long evening lingers in summer. But it’s probably black as pitch inside, so don’t be alarmed if I go stumbling about.’ She paused awkwardly, then came to stand before him. Canted as he was on the sand, she could reach his hand easily. She patted it, then shook it. ‘Good night, Paragon. And thank you.’

‘Good night,’ he repeated. ‘Oh. Brashen has been sleeping in the captain’s quarters.’

‘Right. Thank you.’

She clambered awkwardly up his side. He heard the whisper of fabric, lots of it. It seemed to encumber her as she traversed his slanting deck and finally fumbled her way down into his cargo hold. She had been more agile as a girl. There had been a summer when she had come to see him nearly every day. Her home was somewhere on the hillside above him; she spoke of walking through the woods behind her home and then climbing down the cliffs to him. That summer she had known him well, playing all sorts of games inside him and around him, pretending he was her ship and she his captain, until word of it came to her father’s ears. He had followed her one day, and when he found her talking to the cursed ship, he soundly scolded them both and then herded Althea home with a switch. For a long time after that she had not come to see him. When she did come, it was only for brief visits in early dawn or evening. But for that one summer, she had known him well.

She still seemed to remember something of him, for she made her way through his interior until she came to the aft space where the crew used to hang their hammocks. Odd, how the feel of her inside him could stir such memories to life again. Crenshaw had had red hair and was always complaining about the food. He had died there, the hatchet that ended his life had left a deep scar in the planking as well, his blood had stained the wood…

She curled up against a bulkhead. She’d be cold tonight. His hull might be sound, but that didn’t keep the damp out of him. He could feel her, still and small against him, unsleeping. Her eyes were probably open, staring into the blackness.

Time passed. A minute or most of the night. Hard to tell. Brashen came down the beach. Paragon knew his stride and the way he muttered to himself when he’d been drinking. Tonight his voice was dark with worry and Paragon judged he was close to the end of his money. Tomorrow he would rebuke himself long for his stupidity, and then go out to spend the last of his coins. Then he’d have to go to sea again.

Paragon would almost miss him. Having company was interesting and exciting. But also annoying and unsettling. They made him think about things better left undisturbed.

‘Paragon,’ Brashen greeted him as he drew near. ‘Permission to come aboard.’

‘Granted. Althea Vestrit’s here.’

A silence. Paragon could almost feel him goggling up at him. ‘She looking for me?’ Brashen asked thickly.

‘No. Me.’ It pleased him inordinately to give the man that answer. ‘Her family has turned her out, and she had nowhere else to go. So she came here.’

‘Oh.’ Another pause. ‘Doesn’t surprise me. Well, the sooner she gives up and goes home, the wiser she’ll be. Though I imagine it will take her a while to come to that.’ Brashen yawned hugely. ‘Does she know I’m living aboard?’ A cautious question, one that begged for a negative answer.

‘Of course,’ Paragon answered smoothly. ‘I told her that you had taken the captain’s cabin and that she’d have to make do elsewhere.’

‘Oh. Well, good for you. Good for you. Good night, then. I’m dead on my feet.’

‘Good night, Brashen. Sleep well.’

A few moments later, Brashen was in the captain’s quarters. A few minutes after that, Paragon felt Althea uncurl. She was trying to move quietly, but she could not conceal herself from him. When she finally reached the door of the aftercastle chamber where Brashen had strung his hammock, she paused. She rapped very lightly on the panelled door. ‘Brash?’ she said cautiously.

‘What?’ he answered readily. He had not been asleep, nor even near sleep. Could he have been waiting? How could he have known she would come to him?

Althea took a deep breath. ‘Can I talk to you?’

‘Can I stop you?’ he asked grumpily. It was evidently a familiar response, for Althea was not put off by it. She set her hand to the door handle, then took it away without opening the door. She leaned on the door and spoke close to it.

‘Do you have a lantern or a candle?’

‘No. Is that what you wanted to talk about?’ His tone seemed to be getting brusquer.

‘No. It’s just that I prefer to see the person I’m talking to.’

‘Why? You know what I look like.’

‘You’re impossible when you’re drunk.’

‘At least with me, it’s only when I’m drunk. You’re impossible all the time.’

Althea sounded distinctly annoyed now. ‘I don’t know why I’m even trying to talk to you.’

‘That makes two of us,’ Brashen added as an aside, as if to himself. The Paragon suddenly wondered if they were aware of how clearly he could hear their every word and movement. Did they know he was their unseen audience, or did they truly believe themselves alone? Brashen, at least, he suspected included him.

Althea sighed heavily. She leaned her head on the panelled door between them. ‘I have no one else to talk to. And I really need to… Look, can I come in? I hate talking through this door.’

‘The door isn’t latched,’ he told her grudgingly. He didn’t move from his hammock.

In the darkness, Althea pushed the door open. She stood in the entry uncertainly for a moment, then groped her way into the room. She followed the wall, bracing herself to keep from falling on the slanted deck. ‘Where are you?’

‘Over here. In a hammock. Best sit down before you fall.’

He offered her no more courtesy than that. Althea sat, bracing her feet against the slope of the floor and leaning back against a bulkhead. She took a deep breath. ‘Brashen, my whole life just fell apart in the last two days. I don’t know what to do.’

‘Go home,’ he suggested without sympathy. ‘You know that eventually you’ll have to. The longer you put it off, the harder it will be. So do it now.’

‘That’s easy to say, and hard to do. You should understand that. You never went home.’

Brashen gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘Didn’t I? I tried. They just threw me out again. Because I had waited too long. So. Now you know you are getting good advice. Go back home while you still can, while a bit of crawling and humble obedience will buy you a place to sleep and food on your plate. Wait too long, let the disgrace set in, let them get used to life without the family trouble-maker, and they won’t have you back, no matter how you plead and crawl.’

Althea was silent for a long time. Then, ‘That really happened to you?’

‘No. I’m making it all up,’ Brashen replied sourly.

‘I’m sorry,’ Althea said after a time. More resolutely she went on, ‘But I can’t go back. At least, not while Kyle’s in port. And even after he’s gone, if I do go back, it will only be to get my things.’

Brashen shifted in his hammock. ‘You mean your dresses and trinkets? Precious relics from your childhood? Your favourite pillow?’

‘And my jewellery. If I have to, I can always sell that.’

Brashen threw himself back in the hammock. ‘Why bother? You’ll find you can’t drag all that stuff around with you anyway. As for your jewellery, why not pretend you already got it, sold it piece by painful piece and the money is gone and now you really have to find out how to live your own life. That’ll save you time, and any heirloom stuff will at least remain with your family. If Kyle hasn’t seen to having it locked up already.’

The silence that followed Brash’s bitter suggestion was blacker than the starless darkness that Paragon stared into. When Althea did speak again, her voice was hard with determination.

‘I know you’re right. I need to do something, not wait around for something to happen. I need to find work. And the only work I know anything about is sailing. And it’s my only path to getting back on board Vivacia. But I won’t get hired dressed like this…’

Brashen gave a contemptuous snort. ‘Face it, Althea. You won’t get hired no matter how you are dressed. You’ve got too much stacked up against you. You’re a woman, you’re Ephron Vestrit’s daughter, and Kyle Haven won’t be too happy with anyone who hires you, either.’

‘Why should being Ephron Vestrit’s daughter be a mark against me?’ Althea’s voice was very small. ‘My father was a good man.’

‘True. That he was. A very good man.’ For a moment Brashen’s tone gentled. ‘But what you have to learn is that it isn’t easy to stop being a Trader’s daughter. Or son. The Bingtown Traders look like as solid an alliance you can imagine, from the outside. But you and I, we came from the inside, and the inside works against us. See, you’re a Vestrit. All right. So there are some families that trade with you and profit, and other families that compete with you, and other families that are allied with those who compete with you… no one is an enemy, exactly. But when you go looking for work, it’s going to be, well, like it was for me. Brashen Trell, eh, Kelf Trell’s son? Well, why don’t you work for your family, boy? Oh, had a falling out? Well, I don’t want to get on your father’s bad side by hiring you. Not that they ever come right out and say it, of course, they just look at you and put you off and say, “come back in four days”, only they aren’t in when you come back. And those that don’t get along with your family, well, they don’t want to hire you, either, ’cause they like seeing you down in the dirt.’ Brashen’s voice was winding down, getting deeper and softer and slower. He was talking himself to sleep, Paragon thought, as he often did. He’d probably forgotten that Althea was even there. Paragon was overly familiar with Brashen’s long litany of the wrongs and injustices suffered by him. He was even more familiar with Brashen’s caustic self-accusations of idiocy and worthlessness.

‘So how did you survive?’ Althea asked resentfully.

‘Went to where it didn’t matter what my name was. First boat I shipped out on was Chalcedean. They didn’t care who I was, long as I would work hard and cheap. Meanest set of rotten bastards I ever shipped with. No mercy for a kid, no, not them. Jumped ship in the first harbour we put into. Left that same day, on a different boat. Not much better, but a little. Then we… ’ Brashen’s voice trailed off. For a moment Paragon thought he had fallen asleep. He heard Althea shifting about, trying to find a comfortable way to sit on the slanted deck. ‘… by the time I came back to Bingtown, I was a seasoned hand. Oh, was I seasoned. But still the same old damn thing. Trell’s boy this, and Trell’s son that… I’d thought I’d made something of myself. I actually tried to go to my father and patch things up. But he was not much impressed with what I’d made of myself. No, sir, he was not. What a horse’s ass… so I went to every ship in the harbour. Every ship. No one was hiring Kelf Trell’s son. When I got to the Vivacia, I kept my scarf down low on my brow and kept my eyes on the deck. Asked for honest work for an honest sailor. And your father said he’d try me. Said he could use an honest man. Something about the way he said it… I was sure he hadn’t recognized me, and I was sure he’d turn me off if I told him my name. But I did anyway. I looked at him and I said, “I’m Brashen Trell. I used to be Kelf Trell’s son.” And he said, “That won’t make your watch one minute shorter or longer, sailor.” And you know. It never did.’

‘Chalcedeans don’t hire women,’ Althea said dully. Paragon wondered how much of Brashen’s tale she had truly heard.

‘Not as sailors,’ Brashen agreed. ‘They believe a woman aboard ship will draw serpents after you. Because women bleed, you know. Lots of sailors say that.’

‘That’s stupid,’ she exclaimed in disgust.

‘Yeah. Lots of sailors are stupid. Look at us.’ He laughed at his own jest, but she did not join him.

‘There are other women sailors in Bingtown. Someone will hire me.’

‘Maybe, but not to do what you expect,’ Brashen said harshly. ‘Yes, there are women sailors, but most of the ones you see on the docks are working on their family boats, with fathers and brothers to protect them. Ship out alone on anything else, and you’d better choose early which shipmates you want to roll. If you’re lucky, they’ll be possessive enough to keep the others off you. If you’re not lucky, they’ll turn a nice profit from your services before you reach the next port. And most mates and captains will turn a blind eye to what goes on, to keep order on the ship. That’s if they don’t claim your services for themselves.’ He paused, then added grumpily, ‘And you already knew all that. You couldn’t grow up around sailors and not know it. So why are you even considering this?’

Anger engulfed her. She wanted to shout that she didn’t believe it or demand to know why men had to be such pigs. But she did believe it, and she knew that Brashen could not answer that question anymore than she could. Silence bled into the darkness between them, and even her anger deserted her.

‘So what am I to do?’ she asked miserably. It did not seem to Paragon she was speaking to Brashen, but he answered anyway.

‘Find a way to be reborn as a boy. Preferably one that isn’t named Vestrit.’ Brashen rearranged himself in the hammock and drew in a long breath that emerged as a buzzing snore.

In her cramped corner, Althea sighed. She leaned her head back against the hard wood of the bulkhead and was still and silent.

The slaver was a darker silhouette against the night sky. If he felt he was in any danger of pursuit, he showed no signs of it. He had a respectable amount of canvas on but Kennit’s keen eyes saw no flurry of activity aloft to indicate he felt a need for extreme speed. The night was perfect, a sweet even wind breathing over the sea, the waves willing beasts bearing the ship along. ‘We’ll overhaul him before dawn,’ he observed quietly to Sorcor.

‘Aye,’ Sorcor breathed. His voice betrayed far more excitement at the prospect than his captain felt. Over his shoulder, he said quietly to the helmsman, ‘Keep her in close to the shore. Hug it like your granny. If their lookout chances to glance this way, I don’t want us visible against the open water.’ To the ship’s boy he hissed, ‘Below. Pass the word yet again. Still and silent, no movement that isn’t in response to a command. And not a light to show, not so much as a spark. Go and softly, now.’

‘He’s got a couple of serpents off his stern,’ Kennit observed.

‘They follow for the dead slaves thrown overboard,’ Sorcor said bitterly. ‘And for those too sick to be worth feeding. They go over the side, too.’

‘And if the serpents choose to turn and attack us during battle?’ Kennit inquired. ‘What then?’

‘They won’t,’ Sorcor assured him. ‘Serpents learn quickly. They’ll let us kill each other, well knowing they’ll get the dead with not a scale lost.’

‘And after?’

Sorcor grinned savagely. ‘If we win, they’ll be so fat with the crew of the slaver, they won’t be able to wiggle after us. If we lose…’ he shrugged. ‘It won’t much matter to us.’

Kennit leaned on the railing, sour and silent. Earlier in the day, they had spotted Ringsgold, a fine old fat waddling cog of a liveship, near as deep as he was tall. They had had the advantage of surprise; Kennit had had the crew hang out every bit of canvas the rigging would hold, and yet the liveship had lifted and dashed off as if driven by his own private wind. Sorcor had stood silent by his side as Kennit had first been silently incredulous and then savagely angry at the turn of events. When Ringsgold rounded Pointless Island to catch the favourable current there and be whisked from sight, Sorcor had dared to observe, ‘Dead wood has no chance against wizardwood. The very waves of the sea part for it.’

‘Be damned,’ Kennit had told him fiercely.

‘Quite likely, sir,’ Sorcor had replied unperturbed. He had probably already been sniffing the air for the spoor of a slaveship.

Or maybe it was just the man’s infernal luck that they had raised this one so quickly. It was a typical Chalcedean slaver, deep-hulled and wide-waisted, all the better to pack her full of flesh. Never had Kennit seen Sorcor so lustful in pursuit, so painstaking in his stalking. The very winds seemed to bless him, and it was actually well before dawn when Sorcor ordered the sweeps out. The ballistae were already wound and set, loaded with ball and chain to foul their prey’s rigging and grappling hooks were ready to snare their crippled conquest. These last were a new idea of Sorcor’s, one that Kennit regarded with scepticism.

‘Will you lead the crew to the prize, sir?’ Sorcor asked him even as the lookouts on the slaver sounded the first alarms.

‘Oh, I think I shall leave that honour to you,’ Kennit demurred dryly. He leaned idly on the railing, putting the pursuit and battle entirely into Sorcor’s hands. If the mate was dismayed by his captain’s lack of enthusiasm, he covered it well. He sprang aloft, to cry his commands down to the men on deck. The men shared his battle pitch, for they leaped to obey with a will, so that the extra canvas seemed to flow over the mast and blossom with the night wind. Kennit was selfishly grateful for the favourable wind, for it bore most of the stench of the slaver away from them.

He felt almost detached as they closed the distance on the slaver. In a desperate bid to outpace them, the slaver was putting on sail, the rigging swarming with men scuttling like disturbed ants. Sorcor cursed his delight with this and ordered the ballistae fired. Kennit thought he had acted too quickly, yet the two heavy balls linked with a stout length of barbed and bladed chain flew well and high, crashing into the other ship’s canvas and lines, ripping and tangling as they fell heavily to the deck below. Half a dozen men fell with the balls, screaming until they found the deck or vanished beneath the waves. The sound of their screams had scarcely died before Sorcor had launched a second set of balls and chain. This one did not do quite as much damage, but the harried crew of the slaver were now too busy watching for other missiles to work the sails effectively, while the canvas and lines that had fallen draped the deck and fouled the workings of the other sails. The slaver’s decks were in a state of total disarray when Sorcor ordered grappling-lines swung.

Kennit felt distant and detached as he watched their hapless victim roped in and secured. As dawn ventured over the water, Sorcor and his raiders leapt or swung across the small distance between the two vessels, whooping and screeching their bloodlust. Kennit himself lifted his cuff to his nose and breathed through his sleeve to keep from inhaling the stench of the slaver. He remained aboard the Marietta with a skeleton crew. Those who remained with him were plainly frustrated to be cheated of the slaughter, yet someone had to man the Marietta and be ready either to repel boarders or cast loose the grappling-lines if things went against them.

Kennit was a spectator to the slaughter of the slaver’s crew. They had little expected to be attacked by pirates. Their cargo was not usually to a pirate’s taste. Most pirates, like Kennit, preferred valuable, non-perishable goods, preferably easily transportable. The chained slaves below decks were the only cargo this ship carried. Even if the pirates had had the will to make the tedious voyage to Chalced to sell them, the transport of such cargo demanded a watchful eye and a strong stomach. Such livestock needed to be guarded as well as fed, watered and provided with rudimentary sanitation. The ship itself would have some value, Kennit supposed, though the current stench it gave off was enough to turn his stomach.

The crew of the slaver had such weapons as they carried to keep their cargo in order and little more than that. They did not, Kennit reflected, seem to have much idea of how to fight an armed and healthy man; he supposed that one became accustomed to beating or kicking men in chains and forgot what it was like to deal with any other type of opponent.

He had earlier tried to persuade Sorcor that the crew and vessel might have some ransom value, even if divested of their cargo. Sorcor had been adamantly opposed. ‘We kill the crew, free the cargo and sell the ship. But not back to other slavers,’ he had loftily stipulated.

Kennit was beginning to regret letting the man think he regarded him as an equal. He was becoming entirely too demanding, and seemed unaware of how odious Kennit found such behaviour. Kennit narrowed his eyes as he considered that the crew seemed overly pleased with Sorcor’s idealistic ranting. He doubted it was that they shared his lofty goals of suppressing slavery. More likely that they relished the thought of unreined carnage. As he watched two of his worthy seamen together loft a still-living man over the side and into the waiting maw of a serpent, Kennit nodded his head slowly to himself. This bestial bloodshed was what they craved. Perhaps he had been keeping too tight a rein on the men for the sake of the ransom that live captives bought. He tucked that thought away for later consideration. He could learn from anyone, even Sorcor. All dogs needed to be let off their leashes now and then. He mustn’t let the crew believe that only Sorcor could provide such treats.

He quickly wearied of watching the final slaughter. The slaver’s crew was no match for his. There was no organization to their ship’s defence, merely a band of men trying not to die. They failed at that. The mass of men that had met the pirate’s boarding party rapidly diminished to knots of defenders surrounded by implacable foe. The ending was predictable; there was no suspense at all to this conquest. Kennit turned away from it. There was a sameness to men dying that bored more than disgusted him. The shrieks, the blood that gushed or leaked, the final frantic struggles, the useless pleas; he had seen it all before. It was far more enlightening to watch the two serpents.

He wondered if they had not escorted this ship for some time; perhaps they even regarded it companionably, as a sort of provider of easy feeding. They had withdrawn when the Marietta initially attacked, seemingly upset by the flurry of activity. But when the sounds of battle and the shrieks of the dying began, they came swiftly back. They circled the locked ships like dogs begging at a table, vying with one another for the choicest positions. Never before had Kennit had the opportunity to observe a serpent for so long and at such close quarters. These two seemed fearless. The larger one was a scintillating crimson mottled with orange. When he reared his head and neck from the water and opened his maw, a ruff of barbs stood out around his throat and head like a lion’s mane. They were fleshy, waving appendages, reminding Kennit of the stinging arms on an anemone or jellyfish. He would have been much surprised to discover they were not tipped with some sort of paralysing poison. Certainly when the smaller turquoise worm vied with the larger one, he avoided the touch of the other’s ruff.

What the smaller serpent lacked in size it made up for in aggression. It dared to come much closer to the ship’s side, and when it lifted its head to the height of the slave-ship’s rail, it opened its maw as well, baring row upon row of pointed teeth. It hissed when it did so, sending forth a fine cloud of venomous spittle. The cloud engulfed two struggling men. Both of them immediately left off their own fight and fell gasping to the deck, writhing in a useless struggle to pull air into their lungs. They soon grew still while the frustrated serpent lashed the sea beside the ship into foam, furious that its prey remained safe aboard the ship. Kennit guessed that it was young and inexperienced. The larger serpent seemed more philosophical. He was content to hover alongside the slaver, watching expectantly for men bearing bodies to approach the railing. He then opened his maw to catch whatever was thrown, regardless of whether it was dead or wriggling. He would seize a body in his jaws, but made no effort at chewing it. His teeth seemed devoted to the purpose of tearing. These small titbits needed no dismembering. Instead the serpent would fling his head back and open his jaws far wider than Kennit would have believed possible. Then the body would vanish, boots and all, and Kennit could mark its progress down the creature’s gullet by the distension of his sinuous throat. It was a spectacle at once chilling and fascinating.

His crew seemed to share his awe, for as the battle subsided and there were but bodies and subdued captives to dispose of, they gathered their serpent victuals on the high afterdeck of the slaver and took turns feeding the serpents from there. Some of the bound captives wept and screamed, but their cries were drowned out by the approving roars of the pirate crew as each human morsel was flung over the side. It soon became a game to toss each victim or corpse not to a serpent, but between them, to watch the great beasts vie for the meat. Those men who had remained aboard the Marietta felt greatly slighted to be excluded from this pastime, for though they kept to their duties on the ship, it was with many a glance in the direction of their comrades. As the serpents became sated, their aggression diminished and they were content to take turns with their feeding.

As the final captives went over the side, the first of the slaves began to emerge onto the deck. They came up from the hatches, coughing and blinking in the morning light. They clutched their tattered rags about their bony bodies against the briskness of the sea wind. As hatch cover after hatch cover was removed, the fetid stink in the air increased, as if the stench were an evil genie confined too long belowdecks. Kennit’s gorge rose as he saw how scabrous these men were. Disease had always held a great horror for him, and he hastily sent a man to tell Sorcor it was time the vessels parted. He wanted good clean seawater between him and that pestilence-ridden hulk. He saw his messenger leap to his command, more than willing to get a closer look for himself. Kennit himself quit the afterdeck and went below to his cabin. There he set scented candles alight to ward off the trailing odour from outside.

Some moments later, Sorcor rapped smartly on his door.

‘Enter,’ Kennit invited him brusquely.

The burly mate came in, red of hand and bright of eye. ‘A complete victory,’ he told Kennit breathlessly. ‘A complete victory. The ship is ours, sir. And over three hundred and fifty men, women and children released from below her scurvy decks.’

‘Any other cargo worth speaking of?’ Kennit asked dryly when Sorcor paused for breath.

Sorcor grinned. ‘The captain seemed to have an eye for fine clothes, sir. But he was a portly man, and his taste in colours rather wild.’

‘Then perhaps you will find the dead man’s garments to your taste.’ The chill in Kennit’s tone stood Sorcor up straight. ‘If you have finished with your adventure, I suggest we put a small crew aboard her and sail our “prize” to port somewhere, seeing as how that wooden hulk is all we have to show for the night’s work. How many men lost or wounded?’

‘Two dead, sir, three cut up a bit.’ Sorcor sounded resentful of the question. Plainly he had been foolish enough to expect Kennit to share his exuberance.

‘I wonder how many more we shall lose to disease. The stench alone is enough to give a man the flux, let alone whatever other contagion they have bred in that tub.’

‘It’s scarcely the fault of the folk we have rescued if we do, sir,’ Sorcor pointed out stiffly.

‘I did not say it would be. I will put it down to our own foolishness. Now. We have the ship to show for our troubles, and perhaps it will sell for a bit, but only after we have rid it of its cargo and seen to its scrubbing out.’ He looked at Sorcor and smiled carefully as he phrased the question he had been looking forward to. ‘What do you propose to do with these wretches you have rescued? Where shall we put them off?’

‘We can’t simply put them off on the closest land, sir. It’d be murder. Half are sick, the others weak, and there are no tools or provisions of any kind we could leave them, save ship’s biscuit.’

‘Murder,’ Kennit cut in affably. ‘Ah, now there’s a foreign concept for you and I. Not that I’ve been tossing folk to sea serpents of late.’

‘They got what they deserved!’ Sorcor was beginning to look badgered. ‘And better than what they deserved, for what they got was quick!’ He smacked a meaty fist into his other palm and nearly glared.

Kennit heaved a tiny sigh. ‘Ah, Sorcor, I do not dispute that. I am merely trying to remind you that we are, you and I, pirates. Murderous villains who scour the Inside Passage for vessels to overcome, loot and plunder and ransom. We do this to make a profit for ourselves. We are not nursery maids for sickly slaves, half of whom are probably as deserving of their fates as were the crew that you fed to the serpents. Nor are we heroic saviours of the downtrodden. Pirates, Sorcor. We are pirates.’

‘It was our deal,’ Sorcor pointed out doggedly. ‘For every liveship we chase, we go after one slaver. You agreed.’

‘So I did. I had hoped that after you had dealt with the reality of one “triumph” you would see the futility of it. Look you, Sorcor. Say we strain our crew and resources to take that squalid vessel to Divvytown. Do you think the inhabitants are going to welcome us and rejoice that we put ashore three hundred and fifty half-starved, ragged, sickly wretches to infest their town as beggars, whores and thieves? Do you think these slaves we have “rescued” are going to thank you for abandoning them to their fates as paupers?’

‘They’re thankful now, the whole damn lot of them,’ Sorcor declared stubbornly. ‘And I know in my time, sir, I’d have been damn grateful to be set ashore anywhere, with or without a mouthful of bread or a stitch of clothes, so long as I was a free man and able to breathe clean air.’

‘Very well, very well’ Kennit made a great show of capitulating with a resigned sigh. ‘Let us ride this ass to the end, if we must. Choose a port, Sorcor, and we shall take them there. I shall but ask this. On our way there, those who are able shall begin the task of cleaning out that vessel. And I should like to get underway as soon as we are decently able, while the serpents are still satiated.’ Kennit glanced casually away from Sorcor. It would not do to let him wallow in the gratitude of the freed captives. ‘I shall require you aboard the Marietta, Sorcor. Put Rafo in charge of the other vessel, and assign him some men.’

Sorcor straightened himself. ‘Aye, sir,’ he replied heavily. He trudged from the room, a very different man from the one who had burst in the door exuberant with victory. He shut the door quietly behind himself. For a time, Kennit remained looking at it. He was straining the man’s loyalty; the link that bound them together was forged mostly from Sorcor’s fidelity. He shook his head to himself. It was, perhaps, his own fault. He had taken a simple uneducated sailor with a knack for numbers and navigation and elevated him to the status of mate, taught him what it felt to control men. Thinking, perforce, went with that command. But Sorcor was beginning to think too much. Kennit would soon have to decide which was worth more to him: the mate’s value as second in command, or his own total control of his ship and men. Kennit sighed heavily. Tools blunted so quickly in this trade.